Pansy
by Valentine1
Summary: And yet, as she looked out on the world, she was the only one. She hated so much, there was always contempt behind every thought. The anger would stain, over and over again, leaving all her clothes red.


White, and small, the object dipped under the cold mist of water. Colored glass. The crystals glowed like dozens of jagged pieces of the sun. Still, their color was dim when one looked at the white crystallite object that held them. Folded over delicately, the creases were clean. Snipped, and perfect with lines still flowing into curves. Undisturbed, save the churn of blue that slipped over rocks of sand and slate. The doll smiled wryly; nothing but sweet emptiness in its glazed over eyes. Its round face was pleasantly full. The heart shaped porcelain pressed deep into the jagged crystals. Naked from any strand of hair. 

*

"Mummy, what did you do with Bella?" Barely six, she spoke clearly, but the words were painful to the ear. The girl's face splotched red and pink as if she had run into a bush of ivy. Poisonous. Her right hand was gripped. Fingers spaced in a position to make it appear she was holding something. Nothing but air was visible in the crevices. 

"What's that?" 

"My friend." 

"I though you didn't have any fr-" 

"My bear," she corrected dully, sticking out her already over pronounced chin. 

*

_You are to talk to a boy, Draco Malfoy. The Malfoys are very important, do not forget this. _

Be his friend, be more than a friend. 

Fake it if you must, that is not of my concern. No smile no laugh must be real. Never tell anyone you are lying. The good liar is subtle. You must be believable or all else fails. 

Associate with the Slytherins, and with them only. Keep your loyalties there. Never become attached to anyone, never. You will regret your feelings before they ever come. This is what it takes to be a Parkinson. 

When the last words had signaled, she took up her sharp chin with both hands, gloved in chartreuse satin. _My child._ She felt brusque lips brushing roughly against her skin. Muscles in her jaw tensed suddenly, as they always did. Her lowered eyes were then jolted up to burn with a hallowing fervor. "Good bye mother." Soft and cracking in the frigid air, with the clouds dappled over in sad gray. The girls arms, wrapped in thick green, flew around her mother's neck. Her first and only embrace. If only her arms had not been quite so stiff. Or the expression on her face not so stern. She felt like a threatened lamb, simply alone, but she never looked it. At fault, she may have been, for letting the awkwardness ruin her last few minutes of this life. 

The sun shone so hard that morning it blinded everything in sight. The broken benches, and bit of trash scattered in patterns along the ground were engulfed in a huge glare, hidden with all the insecurities and hints of something worse. Pity, she did not look up to see the sun, to let it take these things away, and feel the warming blush on her cheeks. The constant hum of worry and haste were all that mattered. 

She stepped upon the speeding red dot of a train empty-handed. The heavy trunks dressed in the gleaming gilt of silver, and painted scenery, were tucked away in the rough hands of servants. 

Funny looking elves, robed in pillow cases, with eyes that seemed to fall out of their heads. They scampered on and about without so much as a word to any passerby. Only high-pitched scratchy squeaks were exchanged amongst themselves. No one paid them mention. 

The child had taken such things for granted. She had not known what it was to be desolate in the terms of others, simply, to be poor. It was never something she thought about, or cared to. But there are other pains, pains that have not to do with pretty jewelry boxes with charms dancing about them, or the dainty china that was spread over her dinner table each night. She did not know these either, or she believed it to be so. Why waste one's life thinking for hours on end about the feelings and people that surround. She never did. She drifted by on one day to the next, walked room to room, with no more than emptiness for thought. Never thinking why she didn't have many friends. 

Her gloves had been neatly folded over, and tucked into one of the pockets sewn into her skirt. Steadily, she wrapped her fingers around the metal pole, extending from floor to ceiling, at the door to her compartment. The truth that hid in a locked box, not wanting her to find it, escaped with the iciness of the metal. Was it only not looking for the key? Her eyelids fluttered into a wince, and she had to bite her tongue very hard to prevent screaming out. The truth can be dreadful. 

With the thud of a leather shoe, she stepped into new beginnings, to ride over hills. Drift over sea and lands, and see mountains spiraling to the top of the world. Enchantments, color, creatures lurking in the corners, whispered and hidden by the dark presence of a building. A castle, the stone dusty with memories, was erected under a bitter sky. 

*

He had small hands. That was the first thing she noticed. The blond haired boy sitting by the crackling fire was moving his small hands along piece of yellowed parchment. 

Draco Malfoy. 

Draco Malfoy. 

She had not found him yet, and the name nagged at her like a chore left undone. The room had been surveyed by her desperate eyes many times over, with hopes that she would know who he was the minute she saw him. Apparently, it wasn't so, or he was very good at hiding his face. 

On the countless occasions her family had spoken of the Malfoy's, they had never, even once, described their young son Draco. 

She believed she'd sighed an obscene amount of times in the past hour, all of which she'd spent parked in a rather stiff armchair, bottle green in color. Nearly every decoration in the room was green and that was generous, seeing as color seemed to have leaked out in large amounts. How completely bleak. Maybe moving would do her some good, and maybe she could actually point out a face among the students. She shouldn't have been so lazy. Sitting for over an hour, honestly. Sixty minutes of her life had been wasted. And they were slipping away again, one, two... 

Pansy quickly shook herself to stop from going completely mad. She would do something. Work. There was homework to be done. Of course. It wasn't that bright of an idea to start off the year with missing assignments in tow. Not all all. 

Quickly, she stumbled through that night's assignment. It was a paper about the origins of magic - pretty basic material. Her parents had already drilled such facts into her head, and it was simply a matter of repeating the quotes and phrases she knew by heart. For other first years around her, the matter wasn't so simple. And Pansy found it hard to understand how anyone at all could have found the assignment hard. Pansy, who was instructed day in and day out, didn't grasp that anyone's parents did not do exactly the same for their child. 

While she held the tip of her quill between her teeth, others around her were grunting, complaining, and muttering about how this was absolute torture. They were first years - on their first day, for pity's sake. 

She was one step ahead for once. 

_ Pay more attention_

She was shocked out of her temporary smugness, and realized that she still did have that task. That job. Why couldn't Draco find her? Why was she the one who had to go galavanting about like some sort of... 

Well, maybe she wasn't galavanting. She wasn't even really trying, was she? 

Scanning the room one last time, Pansy came up empty. Briefly, she had glimpsed the blond boy again. He was still writing and did not look to have spoken so much as a word in any direction. And, she was staring, wasn't she? Horrible habit. She broke her gaze by turning away, scolding herself in her head. 

"Like sitting in a dark corner is really going to aid me much in finding this person," her lips moved in annoyance. A hundred-or-so finely spun, sage-dyed unicorn hairs jumped around when her sweater arms moved from their resting place against the armchair. It was a very expensive sweater, she had noted when recieiving it for her birthday a few nights before. Now, though, it looked much like an overgrown porcupine who had been rolling around in grass all day. The heavy-winded sigh that she uttered must have gone unnoticed by her fellow students. The Slytherins came off as a bleak looking lot of people... 

_Don't_ say that! 

Slytherins were wonderful, wonderful people. Why, pick any person at random from this room and they could win a personality contest hands down. Except, well, so many of them seemed to have grim looks and frowns plastered to there faces. Catching sight of her own reflection, biting back a wince, she realized she was frowning as well. And in quite the same way as the unpleasant fifth year, who had wrinkles in his forehead and bags under his eyes, leaning against the wall. 

*

The graying branch swung barely over his head, the apple blossoms brushing the top of his hair. He had been picking at the bits of frosted grass splayed at his feet. Blaise sat to the left, tossing her hair around, her robes clasped tightly with a silver snake. Pansy, always the third, was muttering nonsense, spaced somewhere far away from the two, and picking at purple flowers near her leather shoes. Three eleven year olds, minds carried far away from school work, like normal children. They were not, however, normal at all. One was jealous, one confused, one harboring feelings that should have been elsewhere. These among others. They were all young, infants that tried to clutch at the ends of the world and throw them into spells. Make everything simple. It was all so enormous, the world revealing itself every second. Who was to understand it all? 

"Pansies are ugly. I hate purple." 

"Then why'd your mom name you that?" 

"She wasn't thinking." 

"Really?" 

"What's wrong with your name?" 

"Absolutely everything." 

She shredded the flower in her fingers, now stained with violet blotches. This caused her cheeks to flare, spotting up as well, and pink instead. 

All three were speaking without looking at each other. They didn't really notice whose questions they were answering, whose voice made the intonations. They didn't notice who was angry and who was bored. Simultaneously, lacking reason, the three each turned to look toward the lake. Nothing spectacular was happening, no explosions. No severed heads. No giant squid rising up out of its inky surface. Nothing at all to stare at, yet they had each obviously gave into an itching. The matter was little. 

"Wanna play a game?" Blaise drawled out pleasantly. She had been occupied by nothing for an hour. Releasing energy her feet carried her over to the tree's shadow where she pounced on Draco, pulling on the lapels of his robe. 

"Hormones, huh?" the familiar sarcasm laughed out. 

She scrunched up her little nose. "You make it sound horrible." 

"Don't I always?" 

"What are you up for Blaise?" 

"Everything." 

"Aren't you demanding?" 

"You two are disgusting." Pansy straightened up, brushing away blades of grass that had stuck to her robes. "We're eleven. ELEVEN. Does that signal anything to you? Blaise, you're supposed to think boys are icky, and gross, and have cooties. People these days." 

"Twelve next month!" the higher-pitched voice called back. 

Her brown head was already shaking, laughing at the stupidity of all of it. 

*

"Why do I have to dress up?" a small voice chirped up from underneath several folds of ribbons, lace, and fluff. When she managed to finally pull the choking-width hole over her head, her hair poofed out angrily. A thick piece of it fell into her mouth. 

"Well, haven't we got to make a good impression upon the Zabinis?" Her mother pressed a tissue to her mouth, attempting to stifle an incoming cough. She pulled it away after a moment or two, and Pansy hurled over, covering her mouth with her fist. The method hadn't worked. A shower of flecks of glitter shook from the embroidery stitched on her robe. The overseer's lips pursed with the same movements as if they'd sucked on a lemon. 

"How am I supposed to sit down?" 

"The way you always do. You'll just have to be careful. Don't breathe so hard. Why, your cheeks practically fill up like balloons, and your nostrils flare so. Be lady like, Pansy." 

"Yes, mother. I'll try." She placed one hand over the other, and attempted to breathe without letting her stomach move. 

It was painful. 

"That's better. Now, what ever you do - don't move. I'm going to call Rose so she can finish you up, with your hair and what not. I have to get ready myself, can't expect me to be around all the time can you?" 

"No, mother." 

"That's right. Who's a good little death eater?" She patted her head with the wiggle and tap of a few fingers, and flounced out of the room, turning to show a smile that resembled more a grimace. A deep train of thickly perfumed air drifted behind her. 

"I am." This time a button popped, it had rested briefly in the very center of one of the silken peach blossoms. She quickly covered her mouth, afraid to speak any more. 

"That's right, little Miss Parkinson. I wouldn't say anything either. Who needs to be yap yapping? No good, no good. Sit still, that's all you needs to be worrying 'bout." A tipsy house-elf slipped in on the polished wooden floorboards. Her eyes were the same pink frosting color Pansy remembered seeing that morning. The image was very clear. How couldn't it be? Six cupcakes, stacked one over the other on a porcelain plate, this had been part of the bribery to get her into the dress robe. She'd eaten every one of them, licked the white sprinkles off her fingers too. It wasn't a wonder she was having trouble breathing. But they had tasted very good. 

"'Lo Rosy," she squeaked miserably. 

"No, no. Quiet I says." One spindly finger was held in front of her lips. The knuckled jutted widely in all directions. This was met by a nod that was barely noticeable, coming way of the statue adorned head to toe. 

"Little Miss will soon be a Large Miss if she is not careful about what she puts in her mouth," the creature clicked her long tongue, and began to search for hairpins near the dressing table, "we'll be eating spinach and wizard's trout for the next few days. Very good wizard's trout make you loose that plumpness all round your face. Quickly. Master Draco would not be wanting to wed a Large Miss. No, no. Fat bad. _Little_ Miss Parkinson. Much better." 

Pansy's headed was jerked this way and that, while the elf struggled to straighten out her hair with nothing but the aid of a tiny blue brush. 

The pink-eyed creature's cheeks would no sooner be the very same shade as she jumped up and down trying to do anything. In a last resort to win the battle, she pointed another bony finger at the girl's head and a series of sparks emitted. 

A tendril of smoke spiraled upwards. 

"Y-you set my hair on fire, didn't you?! ROSY WHAT DID YOU DO?" Her voice was now higher pitched than the hopping elf beside her, arms waving about, and hyperventilating. Several more buttons popped, flying away at dangerous speeds. Pearly pink missiles taking flight. 

"Miss, miss, calm down, please." 

"You've killed me haven't you? I'm going to die. I'm going to die because..." 

"Miss will not die!" she voiced shrilly, and turned the girl's head so that it faced the mirror. "Miss' hair is now manageable, is all." 

"Oh. Ah. Well." The girl stopped her movements immediately. 

"I says _quiet_. Stop talking before you go ruining your dress robes." 

"Who wouldn't want to ruin this?" 

Rosy's huge eyeballs swiveled around in their sockets and cast a direct glare her way. "Quiet." Third time was evidently, once again, the charm. 

*

"I knew I was prettier." A pompous-looking nine year old strolled slowly in the room, clutching her mother's large hand in her own. Her whisper was louder than she had presumed it would be. She tossed her two long braids, spun with tinted gold bands. 

"Of course you are, sweetie, but you mustn't say these things so loud. We have an important friendship to keep up with the Parkinsons. So, please, be nice to Pansy." Her mother patted her shoulder and nudged her daughter forward with a push in the small of her back. 

Pansy's eyes rolled so far back in her head she wasn't quite sure they'd ever surface. So this girl was to be her new friend. How sickeningly perfect. Did her mother have to have bad taste in people as well? Nothing was enough. She clucked her tongue and tried not to frown as hard as she wanted. She could most assuredly strain her facial muscles. 

The black haired devil was walking her way, feet tapping around in red shoes. 

"Hi, hi, Pansy! I'm Blaise. Pleased to meet you. Umm, I like your hair." 

"Sure you do." 

Someone in the back of the room apparently had a hacking cough which interrupted the silence. 

"Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, pleased to meet you too. Pleasure. Your hair's...nice as well." 

The little girl flitted about and strangely threw her fragile arms around Pansy, kicking out her feet, holding on to her in the way she did her mother. A black braid smacked Pansy in the cheek. 

She squirmed out of the tight-gripped hold, "You want to go see all my toys? We can go to the playroom. Come on!" Her feet scuttled in the west direction of the expansive room, running away in hopes of escape rather than invitation. Her mother nodded, and the four adults gathered at the table to have some sort of "very important" conversation. One of which didn't involve nine year old girls. 

*

"You run way too fast. Slow down or I'm telling." The poor child's face was flushed rather unbecomingly. Thus the cause of most of her boiling over anger. 

"So you're saying you can't catch up with me? Hah." the other laughed out before slowing down to meet the turtle's demands. 

"I didn't say I was slow. I could beat you if I wanted to. There's no question about that. I just don't _want_ to run." 

"Of course." She had slowed to a walking pace by now. 

"How far away is your stupid room anyway? I want to sit down. Badly." 

"So you are tired! That's alright. You are a girl, after all." 

"Are you trying to say you're not a girl?" Blaise stopped in her tracks and placed her hands squarely on her non-existent hips. Her mouth was open, quite wide enough for several flies to enter. Pansy didn't make this fact known to her. There weren't any flies around the manor, anyway. If it were only Summer. 

"What do you think? I'm actually a fat, snot-nosed boy in a wig. Sure. And my name isn't Pansy either, it's Borus. I enjoy cross-dressing and long walks in the rain. I'm actually betrothed to you, as your parents neglected to tell you." She stopped herself, because Blaise was looking increasingly panicked. She forgot most kids took everything you said literally. "Of course I'm a girl, you twit. But _you_ happen to be a girly girl who can't do anything at all. Except maybe look pretty. That's it, though." 

The girl's hair had fuzzed over on the edges, and her face was still noticeably red. A bow tread in her hair no longer resembled a bow and flopped over, one of the gold strands poking out of order. 

"Well, maybe not looking pretty, now. That's 'cause I disturbed the girly factor by making you run, isn't it?" 

"Of course." 

"See, you agree with me." 

"No!" 

"You just said so!" 

"I never did." 

"Stupid." 

"Fat!" 

"Hey, I'm chubby. Not fat." 

"Whatever you say." 

"Yeah, 'cause I'm right!" 

"NO, I AM." 

"But you said -" 

"I never said anything." 

"Merlin's beard! Why are you supposed to be my friend?" The two could not have been walking down the hallway for more than five minutes. Her face was already burning, mouth dry from yelling. How was she supposed to last the rest of the night? Let alone be this girl's friend. The task loomed impossibly overhead, a big, black, ugly billow. 

"It's a very benefiting relationship. Don't your parents tell you anything?" 

"Yeah, it's not like I listen." 

"Well, you should. Maybe you should take your mother's advice on clothes too." 

"What do you think I'm doing? I didn't pick this dress! Ugh." 

"I just thought..." 

"Whatever." 

"You really like that word." 

"So?" 

The bickering pair then found themselves to be standing in front of a doorway. There were sighs from both sides. Although, one would wonder why. It wasn't as if the room would present a form of escape for either of them. Talking in a different part of the house didn't exactly solve matters. And the exercise of walking wouldn't be there to distract them. 

There was a large oil-painted portrait of Pansy suspended in the center of the room. An inch or two above a blossoming fire. Truth be told, it looked absolutely nothing like her. Of course, that had been part of the job description when her parents had sought an artist. The Parkinson's wanted everything in their house to be perfect. A smudge of paint here and there wasn't too much of a lie. It would do well to help along dear Pansy's confidence, her mother pointed out. This arrangement went on in supposed secrecy. Parents, however, have a way of making everything very, very apparent. 

The painted Pansy, clad in a chartreuse stained dress, billowing out just as terribly as her own, waved happily at the two girls. "Hullo, pleasant seeing you two here. I like your dress, Pansy. Wouldn't it look ever so better on me, though? Don't you think? Maybe Mum and Dad could give me a paint job sometime, eh?" 

"Who's that?" The wide-eyed Blaise elbowed her in the ribs, apparently confused. 

"Me. Don't ask. And don't talk to her. She's plum mad, she is. Full of herself, too. Though I s'pose you might be used to that sort of thing." 

"Funny, she doesn't really look like you. My parents have a portrait of me hanging in the foyer, and it's my spitting image according to Aunt Sophie. I guess everyone can't hire the best." 

"They didn't want it to look like me, stupid." 

"Oh. Well, why not? You're not that ugly." 

"Do you ever shut up Little Miss Witch Weekly?" 

"Being talkative is a good trait, Mum says. Boys never like the shy, mumbly type. You might have a problem with that. I mean, you have to at least have the personality. I can afford to do without. But I'm not so sure if..." 

"You don't." 

"What?" 

"You don't shut up. Don't know why I asked. I can get out coloring books if you want." 

"Crayon stains on my clothes! No, thank you." 

"You talk to Pansy-Number-Two then. Good company for your type. I'll be sitting there - in the corner. Far away. Holler if you need me." 

"That's not very hospitable!" 

"So what? You're not very polite. And your head is way too big for those tiny shoulders. Do you really want to talk to me? And argue some more. Or would you rather we both keep to ourselves the next few hours." 

"My head's big? Why, I never knew...do you have a mirror in this place?" 

"I really hope you're joking." 

"So it is big? Nobody ever told me! I thought my head was perfect." 

*

Every morning, before class, they would gather in a silent congregation around the couches located in the Slytherin common room. Pansy was always ready first. She would walk, and quietly take her place in the end arm chair. Draco sat on the sleeper nearing the fireplace. Crabbe and Goyle knocked heads trying to scramble for the corner. Blaise, always last due to the immense time she spent in the bathroom, would simply walk in to signal their departure. The funny thing was that nobody talked while they were waiting. And they all sat unmoving, occupied by whatever problems dared cross their minds that morning. The cycle was never disturbed. Nobody ever questioned it, or acknowledged its presence. 

It simply existed. In the same way that ghost sits under the bed, running away when mother switches on the light. 

*

The girl clutched rosary beads tight to her chest, fingering each one for a second, one, two, three. Her eyes closed momentarily. An effort to forget for a little while. A little while to remember peace. 

She didn't know what religion was. The wooden necklace had been scattered on the ground, dropped by a stranger. Spread among a torn flesh-colored parcel. Footprints had walked carelessly across its surface. Black outlines. Detailed with crumbs of dirt, bits of plastic. She remembered staining her hand black. There had been a crushed cigarette butt that didn't catch her eye until the moment it touched her. 

_I wonder what it's like to fill up your breath with smoke._

What did it taste like? 

It was better than the sharpness scratching up your throat. Vomit seeping up when you felt sick. 

Was it like burnt toast? The ashes all looked the same. So much the same. 

*

"Winter isn't beautiful without the snow. In fact, it's awfully ugly and strange anyway. No snow makes it a thousand times worse." Blaise's lips, which were red and chaffed due to the cold, moved into one of her signature, yet seemingly annoying, pouts. She had swung open the panes of frosted glass that served as windows. 

"That's what everyone says." It was true, after all. 

"You can't say you don't agree. I know you're not exactly, a butterflies and rainbows girl, but really." 

"If anyone hears _you're_ a butterflies and rainbows girl, you'll be out of Slytherin before I can say quidditch. Why the talk of seasons, anyway? Shouldn't you be worried about what you're going to be wearing to, oh say, some event I don't know about that's five months away?" 

"You're just as worried about vainly foolish things, like clothes, as I am, Pansy Parkinson. And you know it. So don't even try mocking me. I'm talking about winter, because I opened the window and all that naked barren cold is staring me in the face. What am I to do about it?" 

"Jump in a lake..?" 

"It's frozen." Blaise thumped down on the edge of her bed. Her arms crossed themselves over her chest. 

"Shurrrup. Sleepy..." Millicent Bulstrode wailed from across the room, pulling an overstuffed pillow over her square-looking head. She was the only other inhabitant in the room, besides the two. Boring as the day was, the other Slytherin girls had wandered to some random place. Blaise was just upset she had slept in, finding they had not bothered to take her with them. It was pure blasphemy. Pansy had dismissed the matter, with the fact that Blaise deserved it for being lazy. 

Blaise attempted to do something that surely would have been fatal on every other day. She walked over to the green four-poster and ruffled Millicent's coarse tangled hair that felt more like a dry sponge shredded and glued. What could be worse, the reaction of the sleeping beast, or her fingers getting forever tangled in the bush. Pansy even felt herself gulp. 

Her small eyes fluttered and opened, exposing the ugly dirt brown irises. The square head catapulted upwards, sending Blaise to stumble backwards paces. The monster mumbled a few indiscernible syllables. One eye rolled to the corner, making her look the picture of an inmate resting in the more disturbed wing of Azkaban. "Hold me." She drawled out, batting her eyelashes. 

Pansy backed nearer to her four poster. She wasn't sure whether she should run away, immediately, before harm befell her as well. Or there was always the option of gaping and guffawing as loud as humanly possible. 

She didn't look like Blaise anymore, but more a lifeless doll. Her limps poked out from the tackle after minutes of painful struggle. No sooner the monster swallowed them once again. 

"I need to tell you something Draco. Don't run away. Meeeerrrrr." 

"Not...Draco..." 

"Yes, must tell you my secret. Very important." 

"I'm not Draco!" Her words were ignored. 

"I love you!" 

"Pansy! Help me!" 

Was Blaise crying? This would be wonderful to watch. She didn't shift an inch, resolving for the second object of watching and pointing in the position of an onlooker. 

*

The sun's dim rays were already running away, as they always did when night chased them. She hadn't expected it to happen so quickly, however, and her shoulders sighed. How would she find him in the dark? It had been hard enough withstanding the bright light that lit every corner to help her. Furthermore, she wasn't quite sure just where she'd wandered to this time. Surely, it had to be illegal for such a person who had no memory for directions to go wandering out in the middle of grounds that expanded in every direction for miles. 

Hogwarts _was_ huge; there was no other way to go about describing it. 

To top off this evil sundae with a black cherry, she was scathingly cold. The wind had crept down into every bone she possessed, making her arms and legs stiff to breaking point. Wind and cold, the most terrible combination that existed, but winter delighted in it. At home, winter was spent, like every other season, in the confines of a thick stone castle. Actually wandering outside to breathe air was an activity completely alien to her sheltered mind, and not to mention her body that was screaming out in agony. The green porcupine sweater would have served a great deal of good, at this moment, but Pansy had left it at the very bottom of the bottom most part of her trunk. No matter, it had not fit her for three years. 

"Mother would kill me for being so incredibly stupid," she muttered at the chipmunk that scurried by her feet. Chittering happily, the creature dove into the hollows of a nearby tree. Even the stupid chipmunk was warm. Yes. Stupid. If she had to be stupid, so did everyone else. It was the perfect adjective when one couldn't think of other words, because, well, it simply suited every situation. 

Of course, this made Draco the biggest idiot of them all. All his fault that he had left her out here to die of hypothermia because he'd gone running off to God knows where. She was going to die cold, with the ugliest of maddening frowns present on the whole of her face. 

"I hate you." Her screeching voice pierced the chilly air. Briefly, the chipmunk poked its brown head out of the depths of the black hole in the tree and chittered - angrily sounding this time. 

_Don't say that, you don't mean it. You can't mean it._

"Mother would kill me for that as well. I would have died five times today, and counting. What else can be wrong?" 

_Stop talking to yourself._

_You'll look crazy._

"Oh. If there were only _someone_ to look at me, with my pink nose crusting, and my fingers falling off! Maybe they'd tell me where that git Draco went to, and take me back inside." 

"Draco!" her voice echoed a thousand times. She stepped into circles of trees, over branches, and even in a widening puddle of a substance she didn't care to identify. Pansy had spun in every possible circle, and believed she'd walked into every corner, as well, before night finally caught up. The stars were twinkling and proud that their light would finally reach eyes. 

Shoes caked in mud, suede shoes that had done nothing to keep her feet warm, she fell onto the ground, bringing in her knees so she could sit cross-legged. 

"Pansy, you look terrible," that familiar voice, secretly laughing at her, called beneath its false concern. 

She looked up into his face, which glowed with something of an angelic light as the moon shown overcast. She wanted to slap him hard across that scarily pretty face, and yell a thousand curses. In fact her hands even began to grope for her wand, in the vast folds of her thin school robe. Somehow, her willpower fought valiantly to overcome the screaming girl that wanted so much to get out. Her eyes cast down upon the dead blades of grass. She didn't say anything. 

The silence was frightening her; she had to look up to see if he was still there. "I'm sorry." 

*

It was perfectly well and good to read about beautiful people - to see them cry, and laugh, in movies. When the end came round, none of their problems would ever _really_ matter, because at the end of the day they were still beautiful. They could walk away from everything, win hearts with their smiles. It's another matter, completely to watch these beautiful people existing right in front of you every second. You breathe their sorrows and drink their tears. 

When Blaise was teasing her, pulling on her wits, and doing it all with a smile, she honestly wanted to rip out every perfect strand of hair that graced her head. 

No one said it was terribly flattering to be jealous. 

And that was exactly what she was, of everyone. She never told them these thoughts, but instead vowed to act it out in other ways. 

*

Swimming back into her ears, Draco was speaking again, "I never said you had to say sorry," he said with a mix of perplexity and amusement at her words. 

"_I said_ I had to." And she picked herself up from the huddle of cold she'd been sitting in. She nearly fell right back down. Her legs were barely more than useless. She didn't take the hand that was offered to her, but limped on measured and very, _very_ slowly. 

*

He smelled musty, sort of, and strangely like candles. Not the scented kind, but the fire, smoke burning and twisting up to the sky. 

Fate had a way of giving Pansy the oddest of outfits, or rather, her mother had appalling taste. Being expensive didn't warrant quality, how many times had that proved true? Falling and fitting uncomfortably on her frame, Pansy's robes couldn't be called anything but pink. Bright. Shocking. Girly, dressed with frill upon frill, like a nightmare party dress one would expect to see on a six year old. When the thing, as she now regarded it, had arrived by owl a week before she'd nearly thought it was a horrid joke. The box was sleek black, shining like silk, and she'd expected its contents to at least be equally as stunning. Had _that_ been a shock. 

The Slytherin girls hadn't said anything outright about the dress. Though she could recall Millicent spitting up a bit of that morning's oatmeal when she'd pulled the thing out of its box. She'd then quickly paused to dab up the mess with a napkin, coughing with a bit of an exaggerated hack. 

Pansy knew they were just scared of what she'd do to them. 

That was all that saved her, and her face burned as she stepped into the Great Hall. She clung tightly to Draco's arm, wanting to be swallowed up in the black robes he wore. Then no one could see here, and laugh. The Gryffindors certainly weren't going to be tactful, least of all over her. 

"You're going to strangle me," Draco whispered through his teeth. 

_That would do us both some good._

Still, she was too nervous to let go completely. She kept her grip firm, though she did make an effort to lessen it. Her fingers might have turned pink, then blue, as the cause of holding anything that long. "I can't help it." Her face widened into a careful smile, "I'm just such a clingy person." 

*

She could hear Draco's footsteps closing in behind her, until her eyes glimpsed the silver head once more. Again, she walked behind him, as was the way it always seemed to work out. 

The shooting pain that had developed in her muscles only hurt more when she walked faster, however the matter was trivial. Her pace met his, and she relished it. Pansy doubted very much that he was nearly dying from the cold as she was. 

"The meeting was today. We missed it." She had been tentative to break the silence, and even so, she kept her head bowed so she would not have to look Draco in the eye. "I-it's hard for us to meet often, you see, someone would suspect. That's why it's so important that we, you, are there." 

"I know." 

"Yes, of course. I thought you may have forgotten, I was sure I'd told you, and..." 

"I didn't forget." 

*

"Pansy, do you think he loves me?" Blaise tapped her finger on the edge of her shoulder, whispering with a crooked smile. She had not even bothered with scribbling an obscenely long and dully superficial note, to be passed underhand. And the girl thought no one noticed when she did these things. At trying to be deceptive, truly she was terrible. 

"If you want to believe that, Blaise, sure." 

"What is that supposed to mean, exactly?" 

"Look in the mirror first. You're too confused about yourself to worry about how anyone else feels." 

Blaise tugged at a curl of Pansy's hair which was gathered, as always, in a swinging tail at the top of her head. "Why do you have to be so hateful? Every day, too. You know I take all you say to heart, Pansy. Each word." 

"No you don't. You pretend that you do." Pansy batted her hands away. She didn't like to be touched. By anyone. Her stomach would always churn. "It's not enough that you're evil, is it? You have to go around acting like some sort of innocent little kitten. It's honestly disturbing. And that's all there is to it." 

"Do you two ladies have something to share with the class?" McGonagall voiced loudly above the conversation. They were in fact sitting in the middle of a slightly boring transfiguration class, not to make a comment about McGonagall's teaching skills. 

"No, Professor McGonagall," Pansy replied instantly. "Nothing at all." And she smirked, before looking back down at the particular page of _The Horrors of Transfiguration Gone Wrong_ by Deann D. Foarmded. "Sorry for the interruption." She was aware that she sounded curt, by the few laughs that several Slytherin girls echoed. Dutiful laughter. Nothing was ever quite that amusing anymore. Well, not what she said. Not words her lips touched. Never funny to her. But laughter was encouragement. A little reminder of what it was to be normal. And happy. However, Professor McGonagall only sighed, perhaps distraught, "If you're seeking detention, you've succeeded, Pansy, you as well Miss Zabini. See me after class." And she continued her story about how a young boy, Borgus Trattleham, who had permanently transfigured his right thumb into a rusted dagger. 

Pansy was relieved she did not have to continue the conversation with Blaise, until much later that day.   
  
  
  
  
"Wait for me!" Blaise swerved around, throwing out a fragile white hand to clasp at the lapel of her shirt. "I said _wait_." The cloth slipped through her fingers. Her voice filled the room with an annoyed exasperation. A very loud one. She brushed the small dew-like beads of sweat forming on her cheeks, breathing a bit harder, stepping a bit slower, and still she tried to glide through the maze of corridors. "You aren't being fair!" The shadow was only moving farther away. "I can't run." Her feet halted. Paused. She wondered if then they would turn around, come back. Save her. Hastily, she gathered the end of her embroidered night robes, and tried not to slip on the glassy shine of the floor. Feet pattering and a short fringe of dark hair flying, she made her way into the abysmal dark hole where all the answers lay. 

Not far behind the girl who'd run off in her last bit of hope, a shadow slumped down. The figure was not so slim, not so tall and willowy, but it moved with an unspoken grace you wouldn't have expected it to have. Walking practiced, bowing beautiful, in a body that was only full of countless imperfections. "I've always waited for you." Pretty, glazened circles appeared at the corners of her small eyes. And then the figure contracted, discarding completely the temporary artful posture. Small pink mouth dying of laughter that wasn't pure. With a shift of padded feet, sitting up, robes hoisted so they would not collect anymore dirt and dust, then brushed off, the figure full of unexplained emotions walked back into the shadows where it had begun.   
  
  
  
  
"There you are!" Blaise nearly screeched, grabbing the girl's wrist. "Why did you run away from me?" she prodded the question, swinging her arm back and forth, the way she used to hang off her mother when she wanted a new dress. "I wanted to tell you something very important." 

Pansy turned around. Dark, soot-stained circles were drawn on her cheeks by the shadows. "Did you have a question about the Transfiguration assignment or something?" she smirked. They'd spent the last hour helping McGonagall re-alphabetize her papers. "What do you want, Blaise?" 

Her face sunk. Head lowered down to the ground. "All I had to say was," she paused and tried to form the words a thousand times. Stuttered and slipped over them, the way her feet had running here. Her hair swished angrily in her face, and she turned her eyes back on Pansy. Different. Hardly lackluster, but lacking something else. They still gleamed light brown. What was wrong? She tried smiling in a satirical way and wanted to copy Pansy's cold smirk. Her face showed more a pained wince. "Why weren't you at the last meeting?" There. Change the subject. Do anything to avoid saying what you mean. Tone must be serious. 

"We missed you." 

"You've got such pretty hair, why don't you ever let it down?" Blaise fingered gingerly one of Pansy's sloppy curls. The girl tilted her head to the side momentarily, smiled again, but not as painfully as before. She didn't wait for a response and loosened the green band that held together the tail of brown hair. The strands fell awkwardly around Pansy's sharp face. Blaise stepped back and played the role of an artist examining her work. Right hand brushed another wispy curl away from her brow. 

"McGonagall wanted me to give you this." Her other hand unclenched letting the folded brown slip of paper be revealed. Held it out, waiting for her to take it. 

Pansy stared blankly and snatched up the piece of paper. Unfolded it. Her eyes shot down the page. They moved from top to bottom, searched every line. But... 

It was blank. 

"Blaise...?" 

She'd already gone. 

Her lip quivered out of no particular reason. No noises came from either direction of the hall. It had emptied hours before. A window near her right had been left thrown open, exposing her to a draft of night air. 

The parchment went sailing out, a bird taking flight on the next breeze. 

*

"Try to look happy, for once, Pansy, please. We're supposed to be fond of each other. You look like you want me crucified." Draco's clear gray eyes were imploring. Silly, she was happy, in that bemused kind of way, though her face may not have looked it. Her head nodded down quietly. 

"Did you ever consider that might be exactly what I want?" 

"Oh, really?" His barely visible eyebrows shot up so high they might have hit the ceiling. "I'd expect to hear that from Potter." 

"I'm only your girlfriend when we're out there. In front of everyone. It's not real. Why should we pretend?" 

"Is it that terrible being with me?" 

"Much worse." 

There was a pause. 

"God, Draco, I'm kidding." 

"Draco!" 

"Oi." 

"Remind me to never try humor again. Ever." 

"Ok." 

"So now you're talking?" 

"Yes, I am." 

"You suck." 

"I don't think I've ever heard that before." 

"I heard Granger saying it." 

"Muggle slang, really?" 

"I'm slumming." 

"With Granger?" 

"No!" 

*

"I don't cry." Her cheeks were bare, lacking the rivulets of salt water spilling down. She blew a thick brown strand covering her lips, unlatched her fingers clasping the cross shaped holes of the metal gate. Immediately she shoved them into the very bottoms of her pockets, hiding the red grazes patterned like a thousand angry gashes across her open palms. The response she met was a silent stare. Sun pierced the glazed over eyes until she thought they would burst. She almost felt herself shake. 

The lips, turned up at both corners, had turned an unsatisfactory shade of blue that only nearly mismatched the skies own gray-blue shadows. She saw them form, pushing together, to maybe make a word. Her patience jumped. 

"I can change that," the words weren't menacing. They shook and slurred with the little control the owner held very apparent. Each syllable bounced accompanying the plashing rain drops beginning to spatter at their feet. 

"What did you say?" voice rose at the last word, turning up as the water droplets shone back. Fell down from their resting place on her lashes. 

"Nothing." His feet swished, with the look of eyes bearing down on them. 

Her shoulders shrugged upwards then down, but it wasn't too noticeable as her head was always a bit down. Everything and everyone followed the rhythm of the rain. Butterflies beat their wings and departed to shield themselves, so paper like even the air was heavy. 

Two heads, both bent, were heavy with trepidation. Maybe not for the same reasons. 

And she wasn't really paying attention, not as much as she should have. Eyes closed, and stayed that way. Was it for minutes or hours? Years could have passed as the two people, who might have been strangers only passing by chance, stared at each other in the midst's of a grayed over sky. 

"You could change the world if you wanted to." 

*

There was a series of solid tapping sounds coming from the depths of, of, someplace. Drowsy. Something fluttering by her ear. 

It hurt. 

The noise beat inside the walls of her ears, which apparently were now spun sugar. They were breaking so easily. 

Had she screamed? Parted, just barely, the cracked lips were nearly dead and covered in night sweat. They must have been moving, opening, closing, frowning, and pulling up at the corners. The skin split, among the pink wrinkled rivers, and blood spilled down. 

Deep tapping, it had not ceased, not once. Or was it more of a chirp, meant to be soft, but why did it hurt so much? 

"Go away." Her hands circled around a knobby cotton sock, resting by it, the carpet? She flung it out from the corner where the awful noise was coming. She'd hoped to have thrown it there, at least. 

Rustling, fluttering, it was all she could hear again. Incomprehensible, just what it was. Not when . . . not when everything you saw was deep black. Her eyes were still sealed shut. 

A thousand webbing's had plastered her eyelashes down, and they felt heavy. Sleep, however tired she was, refused to come. Refused to meet her. 

*

It is a most confounding matter when one becomes wrapped up in the premise of a single thought. Nonetheless, the condition is inflicted slowly each an every day, growing with the malignancy of a threatening tumor. Or some may consider it a beautiful blossom, black petals' falling singed, to the ground as each day passes. Like the beast's rose, counting down the days until he would find love. 

Nagging at first, you keep thinking about a certain unforgettable matter. Be it that a glass is always tilted in such an angle. Thinking over a matter once or twice, could be all that happens the first time. And try as you might to hate a person, who intrigues you so, makes the biting feeling that there is something about them prospers. Denial, however, is the route so many want to take. The steps fall so easily. For, at times the words can flow out the mouth like air breathing in. So easy to say words you may not even know the power of. 

*

"Can I try something?" 

Eyes gleaming, pupils sinking back into the whites making huge glowing circles. Sharp, they pierced deep down. Like the masses maybe resting in her mouth; her lips parted to show sharp canine teeth. Exactly cut to expectations. Wasn't she right, always? Always, always. Blaise was so predictable. Every hair on her head. 

"Go ahead." 

Pansy felt a weight press down against her until her back became level with the floor. The loose light slung awry, titled ever so much to the left, draped loosely with thick silver cables and chains. Its motions left waves dropping shadows every few seconds over her skin. 

"Wha-" She began her question. Forehead wrinkled to reveal tiny lines forming and disappearing with the speed of air filling her lungs. The light swung over. With a creaking sound, the bulb sputtering with burned out light. A little fire invisible against the dingy stone. It made up the wall. Glass was nothing but an invisible overlay. Flew down so fast her mind spun round leaving her dizzy, shocked without words, unable to form sentences. She tried lifting up, bringing her head higher, going a bit closer to the sky. Not so far down. Neck cracked. Pushed back down again. It banged with the hollowed sound of silver bowls crashing at their feet. All the food scraped clean by pink tongues and pale hands. 

Skin scrunched up around her eyelids. Colors would circle around until the came into focus when they were opened. Blinked a few times to maybe gain a tiny ounce of conscience. Enough to think. Enough to see instead of only looking. "What are you doing?" the words slipped out this time humming to a far away voice she couldn't identify as her own. Strangers drifting like the gnats peppering the broken light. Swing. Crash. Might it fall down any second, the guarded fairy fire to escape? An orange ball of fire that would leave scorch marks like kitten scratches. Tiny, delicate scribbles that burned a thousand times harder. 

Pink nose nuzzled closer until it brushed hers. "You're not very strong." 

The clutches let go. Cottony material making up her blouse settled back, indented with hand prints. She could breathe again. Lift her head up again. The world still spun, its axis thrown into some crazy position, leaving her without any sense of balance. Which way was up? The face had moved away before she noticed it. Only glancing upon the features so close, now forever ingrained upon her memory. 

*

Her eyes burned with a light that they had never before contained and stung to the point that it was believable she would go blind. A thousand tiny points of heat boiling, and wanting to get out, and it gave her an air of a red-angry look. "I hate you Draco Malfoy." She never thought those words would be heard, aloud, passing her own lips, not when another person could hear. Least of all the person in question. Least of all sincere and holding meaning, something other than merely contempt. It was forbidden, wrong, and what bothered her most is that she could not even delight in saying it. 

What was the point in saying you hated someone, when it didn't heave a heavy pain that has been resting on your chest? Letting the world know, letting the boy standing in front of her know of the thoughts that were passing through her mind. It seemed so . . . barbaric. 

"No you don't." He was so calm, pulled together. Didn't he ever get flustered? Or was he always this perfect, so unblemished by the world? Why didn't anyone but her have faults, or feelings, or anything that was supposed to be normal? People were known to be jealous. They killed. Destroyed themselves. Wanted to die because they couldn't take life. Couldn't stand it. And yet, as she looked out on the world, she was the only one. She hated so much; there was always contempt behind every thought. The anger would stain, over and over again, leaving all her clothes red. 

*

Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses. 

"It is time," he said "for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything." 

Harry lifted up his chin, bringing his eyes level with that of the wizard. "And I'm ready to hear what ever you have to tell me." The words didn't sound his own, at all. Alienated, as if some other Harry, a brave rush-into-anything Harry, were speaking for him. His eyes searched the room, wide and wondering at his words. "Only, tell me, first, does it have to do wi-" 

Harry was speaking quickly but stumbled, stopping, looking at the quiet hand Dumbledore raised. He shook his head. Once. "Let me begin Harry, explanation will follow in time." 

He nodded; let his head fall forward, tensions spilling over his fingers, eyes, and ears. His hands felt chill run up them - he rubbed them to stop it. But the motions were lost as he listened. 

The lamplight of the numerous wooden torches that served as a small decorum for the stone walls dimmed a fraction and stayed that way. Harry's head slipped. Sunk into his arms. 

Pansy wondered if he would like a pillow. She tried not to be silly and focus her mind on the task she had set out to complete. But it was so boring. Terribly. Dumbledore's profundity bounced off of her self with the force of impact on rubber. She didn't really understand, maybe. Her parents weren't dead. And, quite frankly, it made no difference either way. Except, she wouldn't be rich anymore. 

Ungrateful. Hadn't she heard that? You could only take so much. She almost laughed and caught herself moments before. 

It wasn't the only danger to come her way. 

A piece of snuffy material tickled her nostrils and they flared. She quickly covered her face in her hands, and held her breath until her stomach sucked flat. Her legs begin to tingle while her body could not be subdued to be still. Every wisp of hair itched with a burning, yet she was forced to ignore the temptation to skim flesh. The noise might not be inaudible. What if she knocked a pot over? Or worse, moving about could disturb the thin tapestry that was her only protection against discovery. 

She dared not even to breathe too harshly. A little wind would cause the tapestry to billow out, maybe plaster to her figure and reveal her presence to the dwellers of the room. 

To block out dust, or any other creature with the intent of scratching her throat, both hands clasped over her mouth. Her nostrils flared every second with the passing through of air. The intake sounded loud. Too harsh. Someone would hear. They would. Oh. She winced. Bit her lip. If she were found! 

Fingers crept up her spine. 

Pansy nearly doubled over. She had never wanted to scream louder at any other point in her life. 

It was all the more worse because she was expecting it. The girl had imagined someone finding her. Scolding her. And she couldn't keep secrets that well. Up till now her tongue had held itself steady, alright. But there had been times when she nearly committed treason. Let the concealed slip out. 

Dangerous, words were. 

*

Drops of salty sweat were sliding down her, now sticky, dark strands of hair clustered and sticking to her glistening forehead. Her arms crossed themselves over her chest, sticking as well. A drop of perspiration slowly found its way to her tongue and stung at first. She could taste dirt and that sort of syrupy sweetness that she'd expected. Burning. Her head spun slightly not leaving enough time for a single picture to come into focus. The window not more than five feet away became a moving blur. Its own single pane of glass reflecting over and over a thousand times. Trying to focus. She shut her eyes momentarily. Wondered if they would be stuck together from the power of the sticky sweat pouring from her pores. 

Judging a single touch of the air upon ones skin, it wasn't truly even quite warm. 

A flop of hair fell onto her cheek when she turned over. It felt the consistency of a clump of grease that swayed with the vibrations of her head. It went round and round in tiny circles so that it was hard to tell if she was really moving. Except that the air hummed fast through her eardrums. Speeding and rushing past. Maybe she was flying. Soaring. Running away with the wind. 

Except. 

The sky didn't have walls. 

She was still locked up. The key thrown away. Swallowed by an angry mouth. 

_ I can't leave until I promise. Bid I will do what they have asked me._

It had been planned for years. They had only told her now. Was she really that unimportant? Or was it torture. Love him first. Maybe that's what they wanted. 

Make the girl cry. 

*

_Try everything once._

"It's still raining." A drop rested in the indent above her upper lip. Caught in a trap. Sparkling. Waiting, round and glassy. 

"God!" 

She turned to stare quizzically at her friend. Other Hogwarts students copied her movement. They were obviously startled by the high-pitched voice. 

"Why won't you admit it, Pansy?" 

"Admit what? I have no idea what you're getting at. Enlighten me, why don't you?" Her curly hair was hanging flat for once. Normally dark brown, it looked almost gleaming black amidst the rain water that kept slipping down. Dripping. 

She straightened her striped silver-green tie, or tried to straighten it. The silk banner of material kept flopping over to the right, clinging ever still to her blouse. 

The droplet of water was still perfectly balanced above her lip. Would it burst soon? Explode, and slide down in a dribbled-over river. For a second it balanced on the edge of her pale flesh. Stopping, and then blowing back with the wind. Ultimately it stayed, stubborn as a mule. Might it be pushed over? Some things needed persuasion. Needed help. From the outside. 

The brunette blinked, opening up her brown eyes to stare back up, "I would think you already know." 

"Well, I don't! Can't you just tell me?" 

"What's to tell?" The pretty girl shrugged her shoulders, her words died before they reached her mouth. Falling out useless. 

"If it's all right with you, I'm going inside." Pansy turned on her heel, shivering ever so slightly. Icy water soaked skin deep. Her limbs were numb. But she wondered...what did that face mean? That stare? Those words. Everything was confusion, nothing made sense. People were colored blurs, spinning on the tilted axis of the world. Sometimes a person fell in front of her, stopping just long enough to almost come in focus. Blaise was fading back out and soon she would be like the rest of the crowd. The rest of the outsiders, taking their places at their desks. Scribbling furiously with an ink-stained quill. Her black hair became a darkened shadow. Soon that would be all she remembered when she left this place. The shadow of her friend. About to die when the sun swung over. 

Was that what she was? She knew she hated her, once, a long time ago. 

"Pansy!" a yell shrilled stinging at the tips of her ears. 

Click. Her heel met concrete, leaving a dusty later of white remaining. The clicks came closer together, and farther apart. Louder and more violent every time. An onslaught. 

*

The glass did not want to balance between his long slender fingers. Every few seconds, it would sway, shaking side to side the multi-colored lights jumping and switching from crystal to crystal. The reflected lights would form pictures of songbirds that had lost their voice, silently holding the dignity of a pride they no longer had a real right to. 

"Distracted?" Her head turned to glance at the blue light dancing across his left cheekbone. 

"Normally, I would have said yes. Seeing as examining a wine glass seems to be the most constructive thing I can find to do; we live in a sad place." 

Her eyes turned up at the corners, but it wasn't in anything close to a smile. 

"They'll be coming for us shortly." Curtly dismissive. With no real tone or feeling behind the voice. A pleasant ring to the end was absent. That was how she hoped she sounded. It was agreeably the best way to go. 

"Hmm." A slur of noise. His chin nodding, acknowledging. 

She wasn't lying. 

"Is everything packed? All your robes - you have so many..." trying to sound light this time around. Be different. Fluctuate. Never be predictable. Not like Blaise. His voice already sounded dead; there was no use in mimicking it. No use for the rock solid exterior. Have pity. It exists in everyone, doesn't it? 

"Yes. It was done weeks ago. You know that." 

"Sorry. I just wondered..." 

"Pansy, how many times do I have to tell you this? You don't have to say sorry for everything. Don't say it unless you know perfectly well you mean it. And this isn't exactly an event that calls for mistruths. You're not sorry, and if you are you shouldn't be." 

Her eyes fell upon the ropes wrapped tightly around his chest. 

Could he breathe? 

Turn away. She couldn't stare at the picture any longer. 

"Potter spoke to me this morning." 

"What did he say?" her reply was instantaneous; not missing a beat. She kept her glance predominantly on the shadow her bowed head was casting. 

"Besides the everyday slur of insults, mine always win out, obviously. He found a new one, rather brilliant it was. I'm proud." 

Look at him. He seemed to be sneering. That familiar face, eyebrows quirked strangely. Voice thin, calm and it grated you. He seemed to have picked up that particular talent in observing Lucius. 

"Pansy. Wouldn't you like to guess what he said?" 

"Not particularly," her words were whispered. Light, she tried to drift back into the assured safety of her modest personality. The one she almost always wore. Despite the sarcasm, the lack of feeling. Quiet. Vulnerable. No, she must be prepared. Don't be frightened. Don't be scared. 

"Oh, I'm sure you would. You're so smart Pansy. Genius, almost. What did he say? You've got an idea. Why don't you say it?" 

Rising higher. 

"I don't know." 

"You must, though. It concerns you, how could you not. I wonder why Potter would ever care to mention..." 

Pansy bit her lip. He can't hurt you. But what could she do? That wasn't her worry. What was she set out to do? He knew. She'd told him. They'd all made it so obvious before. Warning signs hanging in notes. Even gifts were a reminder. Stay clam. Calm is good. Breathe. You die if you stop breathing. 

"Wonderful Potter. Standing there, his eyes burning. I'd mentioned something about James, I remember. Apparently he was glowering. It was wonderful to watch his face twitching in that way. I thought he would hit me. 

"Why he looked very much like you do now." 

He had always been so pretty. Soft glazed eyes, that didn't quite have any color covered in lashes you could only see when the light hit a certain point in the day. It was a deathly kind of pretty, nearly impossible to conceive seeing in one single person. Eyes that had now closed. And the porcelain china-doll face, with its smooth lines, and paling skin was pressed down into the bloody chips of glass and spilled red wine. It didn't want to balance and had spiraled down from his fingers, hitting the ground before his silver head. 

Pansy's breathing came out suddenly in a rush, much too fast. It stuttered and stopped; her lips quivered pangs of shock and hurt vibrating from every bone and muscle. Her grip only steadied. The wand that had done the work clutched ever tightly between her thick fingers. 

The flash had only lasted seconds. Still she saw it. Green and so bright it may have been called barely visible. She wanted to whisper more words, say only something to break the reality of this moment. To laugh. 

*

The branch turned over, and over, leaving little red scratches on the palms of her hands and the pads of her fingers. Thorns protruded every few inches along the soft mahogany colored bark. Little black feet scampered across the tip, and fell down, when she shook the stick wildly. She hated bugs. All of them. The picture of them scurrying across her skin, nipping and stepping on her flesh, was permanently fixed in her mind whenever she saw little legs, or fragile wings. It was most disturbing, at the very least. 

"Listen," hissed her mother's sharp voice, biting at her ears. Any intimacy they had once held, even if for only a few minutes, was lost. 

She nodded, solemnly, and bowed her head down to look once again at the frosted over grass. The blades had a way of crackling pleasantly when she shifted her feet. The way ice crunched under your teeth, numbing your mouth, gave her an indefinable pleasure. Her hands clutched still around the splintered branch, letting it swing slowly by her side. Along with that, her mother's elbow was jutting into her stomach. The feeling brought around an instant bitter nausea. Her lips remained closed. 

_I suppose I should be crying._ The faces gathered around all expected her to do so. Their looks were imploring, and lingered longer than proper. There was nothing but a blank smile they would catch. She was grieving in silence, some supposed. Others knew better. Others knew that it had not been accident, knew everything. They, however, still expected her to show that sad face. Nothing else should suffice. Smiling was most vulgar on any occasion. 

Even the Weasley's were gathered there, though she wasn't quite sure _why_. The whole Hogwarts seventh year stood, their silly heads bent, no doubt a million rumors flying through their heads. She knew well none of them were sorry either. They were there out of obligation and duty. While she was forced to. On any account, though she did not say or know it, her feet would have walked to this very spot doubtless of the cold hands pushing and prodding at her back. Not even Ron Weasley was smiling that same smile, thin and measured, that she proudly held. Rather, his face was pulled tightly and he looked almost shocked. Malfoy was probably the very least of them he expected to be dead. Malfoys were death eaters. Weren't they safe? Pansy stifled a laugh while she watched his panicked expression. Soon, though, he drew the heavy black cloak closer around his face, blocking his eyes from her view. _He probably wished him dead, everyday._

Potter didn't appear quite so different than Weasley. They were huddled together, and she thought they might have been whispering. Golden-red and black heads pressed seamlessly under the falling white sky. The Granger girl sat a few lengths away with her legs crossed over each other and slanted sideways on the stump of a tree she'd chosen for her perch. Her hands kept moving to pick at the ends of her skirt. There was nearly a frown on her face, a sad one, just for a few passing seconds before Pansy turned away. 

She'd still seen it however. 

It was so easy to be confused, and hurt. No one knew what to expect when they woke up in the morning. You found out who maybe did care an inkling about you, then, that was the only consolation. The novelty of it was lost, because once you said you cared for someone no doubt they were hanging dead in the back of a dark alley. 

Everything worked that way. 

"Pansy," Her mother hissed in her direction again. "Do you have something to say?" 

"Hmmm?" She looked up from the observations she had been paying to her fellow piers, at Hogwarts. Was she expected to do something? No one had told her. _Maybe they want me to be sincere_. A twisted concept, considering, but it easily could be what they wanted. Tiredly, she walked over to stare back at the face she'd not forgotten, and wouldn't, ever, most likely. He looked the same. Still pressed and pale. 

Remembering the branch she had in her hand, she raised it to her eye level again. Silently, and slowly, she picked apart the small number of purple blossoms that had managed strangely to grow in the middle of winter. When she had a sufficient number resting in her palm, with extravagant motions, she swirled them over his face and watched the petals settle around him. 

"Here's to you, Draco Malfoy." 

And she kissed his frozen brow, tasting some of the purple petals in her mouth. 

The ground was cold. It scratched her legs, when she'd fallen down. They were all staring again. Still confused. Aren't we all? Her lips moved again, and a loud mirth-filled laugh sang out. Held down, for so long, she sputtered as she almost choked on that laugh. Struggling, her hand grasped the white marble casket. Surprisingly, it hadn't been as cold as Draco's temple. Granger gasped loudly, looking upwards and away from the wrinkled mess that her skirt had become. 

The woods looked inviting. More so than anything else. 

"I'm sorry; I mean it this time." 

She ran in the opposite direction towards the friendly trees. Still laughing. So hard, that she was now crying as well. The salt tasted reassuring in her mouth, it was a feeling that hadn't come to her for years, now. 

*

**finé**


End file.
